


if you've a monster to recommend

by safeandsound13



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Crack, Crack Treated Seriously, F/M, Family, Fluff and Humor, Friendship, Gremlins, Humor, Jealousy, M/M, THATS AN ACTUAL TAG I CANT, and they want clarke gone lmfao, anyway, basically murphy gives bellamy some fuckin gremlins for his birthday, delicious absolutely delicious, i forgot crack, i'll stop, im pissing myself, lets get the mandatory tags out of the way first, the internet is forever and that is just a tag i made, wow so accurate
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-25
Updated: 2018-05-25
Packaged: 2019-05-13 09:33:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14746308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/safeandsound13/pseuds/safeandsound13
Summary: "Em said there were some rules, but she was half-undressed so I'm not sure I remember them all correctly."God, images. Images in his brain he didn't need. He's been through enough trauma.Bellamy furrows his brows together. "Rules?" He gave up the entire We Can Do Whatever The Hell We Want thing way back when, but the last time someone gave him a gift with rules, he ended up raising her for pretty much the next sixteen years of his life.He starts straightening out his shirt, idly brushing some imaginary dirt off it, a nasty wolfish grin on his face. "Yeah, something about not feeding them water with the lights on after midnight, or something. I don't know, whatever. Again, there were boobs. My thoughts were otherwise occupied."Or, Murphy gives Bellamy a birthday gift that gets Way out of hand. Based on the ‘things they said’ prompt: “Why do you have a little gremlin hiding in your purse?” which I maybe not should have taken so literally.





	if you've a monster to recommend

**Author's Note:**

> don't yall just love winning? b/echo had one (1) scene together and it was blurred so we would focus on clarke losing her shit mentally over her platonic husband cheating on her. i nEVER LOSE.
> 
> so to celebrate canon bellarke (bc jason will have to pry this scene from my cold dead hands if he ever tries to backtrack) here's a tropey, overcharacterized crack fic i started like..... at the end of s3, i think? so i guess it's a canon divergence fic because obviously *some* of these characters (bell’s demon sister anyone ring a bell?) have lost their literal shit in the span of a season and a half, but this is kind of a crack fic anyway so let’s just roll with it. gremlins was my favorite childhood movie (which probably explains a lot about who i am as a person), and when i saw this prompt ( **"Why do you have a little gremlin hiding in your purse?"** ).... let’s just say i got carried away, then my ADD made me forget about it all together until like 18 months in the future, so here we are.
> 
> ENJOY or dont im not your father
> 
> song in title is from en vogue, not sesame street oK :)

 

It's his own fucking fault, really. All it took was their people surviving earth's second nuclear apocalypse in the past two centuries (thanks, Raven), not having to constantly fight other people for the right to breathe air, some diplomatic peace and symbolic territorial lines with the other grounder clans that did not have the capital punishment as a consequence for whoever crossed them, a girlfriend who believed in the goodness of people, and he got so comfortable—he started to trust  _Murphy_. Murphy.

He's never cared much for his birthday, missed most of them anyway, especially after they got down to earth. On the Ark it just always seemed better to invest their rations and energy into something else or save them for Octavia's birthday. On earth—well, there was really nothing to celebrate most of the time. Yet, these days they seem to commemorate everything. Weddings, pregnancies, birthdays, and when Unity Day seemed too far away, they made up their own holidays.

Clarke came up with Remembrance Day, for their fallen ones, celebrated on Wells' birthday. Octavia branded a few days in the late summer as Augustus Festival, mostly dedicated to the kids (because they have those now); performing silly plays for them, hosting friendly-spirited contests (always a step up from the whole conclave game) and painting their faces with leftover warpaint. Basically every winter's day with more than five inches of snow was Local Moonshine Day, courtesy of Monty.

That's how he ends up with three small creatures lodged against his chest, a present from Murphy. They're in his tent, Bellamy barely awake and rubbing at his eyes to make sure this isn't a nightmare, when he takes them out of his bag and hands them to him with a one-shouldered non-committal shrug. "For, like, your birthday or whatever, man."

"You're still a piece of shit," he grunts, only partly heated, but he's hiding a smile. It's nothing compared to the history book describing the years 2015 to 2045 Raven partly restored for him (something about an evil president and everyone wanting to die?), or what Clarke gave him at midnight; a charcoal drawn picture of him and Octavia. But. It's a nice sentiment. Especially from someone he wasn't aware had feelings beside hate and envy.

Murphy scoffs in response, crossing his arms over his chest. They do this dance almost every time one of them shows a little too much of those things they call feelings. It's a guy thing, or a Bellamy and Murphy thing. "And you're still a little bitch-baby, gramps."

"Good," Bellamy grins, kicking him in the shin, before staring down at the creatures in his arms almost longingly. They're small.

"Great," Murphy answers, defiant as he shoves him, automatic. One of them cries out, high pitched and shaky, scared as it's body trembles against Bellamy's chest.

They're ugly, the creatures, like what Bellamy can best describe as a mix between a bunny, a bat and maybe a troll. They're the size of two fists, are furry and have these big, bright, brown eyes. (Radiation, man. No one's DNA was safe.) And, well. They're his now. So. He kind of loves them. On principle.

"Mogwai," Murphy tells him with a snarl, sensing Bellamy is looking for the right words to describe them, as he reaches out to poke one. It growls, shrill and funnily not at all threateningly, before sinking it's teeth down into Murphy's boney, dirt-stained finger.

He yelps out in pain and the one—that is now officially called by the name Spartacus after his favorite Roman war hero—purrs satisfiedly, rubbing his head against Bellamy's chest. He chuckles, manoeuvring all three of them into one arms so he can use his free hand to caress it's cheek, adored. He's found his favorite.

"Motherf—" Murphy grimaces, sucking his finger into his mouth for a second before he wipes it on his leg. Even though they both know his fingers have been in dirtier places. "Emori  _told_  me not to take the little fuckers, I'm starting to see why."

Bellamy snorts. "You'll live."

He narrows his eyes in response, flipping him the bird, but by the end of his next sentence, he's smirking. "Em said there were some rules, but she was half-undressed so I'm not sure I remember them all correctly."

God, images. Images in his brain he didn't need. He's been through enough trauma.

Bellamy furrows his brows together. "Rules?" He gave up the entire We Can Do Whatever The Hell We Want thing way back when, but the last time someone gave him a gift with rules, he ended up raising her for pretty much the next sixteen years of his life.

He starts straightening out his shirt, idly brushing some imaginary dirt off it, a nasty wolfish grin on his face. "Yeah, something about not feeding them water with the lights on after midnight, or something. I don't know, whatever. Again, there were  _boobs_. My thoughts were otherwise occupied."

The older of the two men rolls his eyes, setting his new tiny friends down his bed carefully. He pets each one on the head softly. In hindsight, the whole rules thing should've made him at least five percent more alarmed. Why Murphy thought they would be the perfect gift for him, was probably a whole other discussion. "Emori deserves better."

Murphy draws back the tent flap with one hand, slinging his backpack over his shoulder with a small nod. He pauses, almost awkwardly. "Well, happy fucking birthday, you ungrateful son of a bitch."

"Stop, you're going to make me cry," he bites back, half-heartedly. He's strangely touched by the gesture. He loves taking care of other people, and these animals are the next best thing. Even if part of him is still convinced Murphy is fucking with him and they're going to eat him in his sleep or something. "Thanks on behalf of my mogwai. Don't think they would've survived much longer in your care."

The flap falls back over the entrance, Bellamy just able to make out half of a  _fuck you, Blake_  before he looks down at his new friends on his bed, hands on his sides. They blink up at them with their huge eyes, innocent and small, and he feels a familiar wave of responsibility wash over him, chest feeling too narrow for his heart. They need him. "Don't worry, little guys. I promise I'm going to take good care of you."

* * *

Turns out, they're not as helpless as he originally thought. They are actually super intelligent, resourceful, quick-witted and playful. Everyone who comes into his tent to congratulate him loves them at first sight. And they should, they really, legitimately, absolutely should. He would already die for them. It's just—they're also jealous, and possessive, and very… jealous.

So. Everyone loves them. Except Clarke.

Clarke, who he shares a tent with. He doesn't really remember how that happened, at one point it just seemed right. They spent most of their time together anyway, and once they started to do more than just talking—well. It made no sense for them to occupy two individual tents when there were families who could use the extra space. Now they kiss occasionally, hold hands on the regular, mom and dad everyone around them, and sometimes—when it's dark and quiet and he's holding on to her so lightly that he can convince himself he's dreaming—he tells her about things he's never told anyone else.

He can't sleep the next night. It's the time of year it's just constantly hot and stuffy and you feel like dying. He's heard Clarke sigh like five times the last two minutes, continuously shifting into different positions, which makes it even harder for him to drift off and get some much needed sleep.

Finally, she snaps. "Do they  _have_  to be in our bed?" He isn't facing her, but he knows she's frowning, wrinkles on her forehead. Clarke is frowning eighty percent of the time (which is good, compared to the ninety-five percent a few years back) so it's not that hard of a guess, but he  _knows_.

Carefully, he shifts so he can look at her over his shoulder. Her gaze is focused on the ceiling, arms petulantly crossed over her chest, even slightly pouting. Her brow is creased. It's cute. Choking back a snort, he turns onto his other side with some minor difficulty, trying not to crush Spartacus and the other little ones, propping himself up on his elbow.

A thin layer of sweat covers her skin, and she tastes salty when he leans over to press his mouth against hers. At least the pout disappears. It's not like he hasn't tried. He put them in a makeshift crib—that's actually just a basket they generally use for fruit picking—with a little bed of fur and leaves in it and everything, but they keep crawling back into bed with him. They even refuse to lay on his side of the bed, insisting on being  _in between_  him and Clarke.

(Which, he knows is problematically possessive and probably unhealthy, but actually makes him proud in some way. He's never had anyone love him for just being him, for existing, not this fast and practically unconditional anyway.)

She adjusts her head, to meet his gaze. She winches slightly, as she tries to find the right words. "They're so…" She pauses, eyeing the creatures warily, as if they're able to understand every word she says and will use it against her. Finally, she presses her thumb and forefinger into her eye-sockets tiredly, settling on, "Needy."

"It's only their first day here. Maybe they need some time to adjust," he offers, reaching out to cover her hand resting on her stomach with his comfortingly. Before he can do anything to stop it, as if to make Clarke's point exactly, one of the mogwai follows his every move, laying down his head on top of their hands.

His tongue darts out to wet his lips, looking at the other two snuggled up against him. "They must have imprinted on me, or something." He did pay attention in his Biology class back on the Ark. "I'm their mother hen."

Clarke grins, fond, reaching out to smooth a curl away from his eyes, softening. "You're  _everyone's_ mother hen." There's a beat, and then she tilts her head, raising her eyebrows. "But I don't see Jasper in here trying to snuggle up against you."

"Yeah, thank the universe for that."

She shifts in the bed again, leaning her head on her fist and supporting the weight with her elbow. "Have you named the other two yet?"

He mirrors her position, settling his furry children down in between them with his free hand before he does so. "Well, since I already named Spartacus after a legendary Roman—"

"You're such a nerd, I don't know why I hang out with you," she laughs, cutting him off, and he reaches out to poke in the ribs, playfully. He ignores her as he continues his original line of thought. "—gladiator, I figured I should stick with the roman trend."

He scratches the littlest one on the stomach; she has long eyelashes as is always staring up at him like she live and breathes just for him. "I think this is Fulvia."

He looks down at the last one in thought, observing his beady red eyes and white strike on his head, contrasting with his otherwise brown fur. Clarke follows his gaze, pensively. "I think this one should be called Lucifer," she says, when she reaches over to pet it and it growls, baring it's tiny, sharp teeth until she jerks her hand back. One brow arched, her eyes flick up at him pointedly. "Just  _because."_

He snorts, ducking his head quickly to press a kiss to her nose. "Go to sleep, Clarke, you're getting homicidal."

She closes her eyes, grumpy, as she leans her head back onto her pillow. He does the same. "That would imply I'm sometimes not."

He closes his eyes, and it's dark for about three seconds, when a voice breaks him out of his slumber. "Gyon op, bitches."

It's Octavia, he realizes, as soon as there's sunlight streaming into their tent, and onto his face. He must've fallen asleep at one point. Automatically, a hand comes up to shield his eyes, before they burn to death and his girlfriend just groans, snuggling further into the blanket he made out of old fur.

She's barely finished her sentence when he notices their yelping, almost pained. His brow furrows together, fretting, and petting them frantically to try and calm them down. Maybe they're anxious, he could understand that. His sister is a little much at times. He also gets anxiety, sometimes.

"It's the sunlight," Clarke remarks, lifting herself up to her knees to shield them with the blanket. She eyes Lucifer warily, who's just watching his siblings burn from the shadows, as she scoops up Fulvia, cradling her to her chest. Her quiet anguished howling subsides, proving her theory right.

At the same time, Bellamy quickly picks up Spartacus, sitting back on his heels with his back to the entrance of their tent, the little guy nestled in his arms. His sister strides over to the bed, boots loud and her hair a mess of braids as she sinks down beside them, sending them a confusing glance. "What's wrong with them?"

"I don't know," he admits, quietly, searching Spartacus' face worriedly as he shakes his head lightly, racking his brain for a suitable answer. He didn't pay  _that_  much attention during biology. "Murphy mentioned something about sunlight, but I didn't think—"

"It's not your fault," Clarke weighs in, cutting him off as she sends him a stern look. Her free hand comes up to wrap her fingers around his upper arm. "Every time Emori tells him not to mess with earth shit, he does it anyway."

"Maybe it is your fault. I mean, you shouldn't have let Murphy take them from their home," Octavia cuts in, even though nobody asked, as she uses a finger to scratch Spartacus under his chin. In turn, he almost bites her finger off. Clarke tries to choke back a laugh, but fails terribly. His sister glares at her, but his girlfriend just holds up a hand in mock defense.

(Seriously, he loves his sister, and it's taken him a very long time to realize, but with Clarke's help he's become aware of the fact he doesn't always have to put up with her bullshit. She's her own person now, exactly what she wants, and he doesn't have to give her the shirt off his back every chance he gets. Even if that is his first reflective instinct.)

He looks down at Spartacus, eyes still tiny sliths as he looks at Bellamy's sister, letting out a heavy sigh. The sunlight  _burns_  them. That's at least twelve shades of fucked up. It's how he knows that it's definitely more than he signed up for.

* * *

 

He finds Emori sitting on a log, sharpening a knife, few feet away from the others, who are eating breakfast. She still mostly spends her time alone or with Murphy (unfortunately for her), and he gets that. She's spent most of her life in hiding, so it's hard to be here, and be part of something.

He put the mogwai in a sack strapped to his chest, because he didn't want to leave them by themselves. You never know on Earth. Alien space prisoners could come down and murder them, or the ground could open up and swallow them whole at any moment. Which brings him back to the entire reason he even came to see Emori.

(He found Lucifer trying to eat Clarke's still life of a fruit bowl at 3 a.m., and he threw a full on temper tantrum when Bellamy tried to pry it away from him. Next thing he knows, they're both eyeing the gun on his nightstand like they're two cowboys in a stand-off.

Now, Bellamy—real, full, complete human adult who knows how to handle a gun— _knows_  that the mogwai isn't nearly intelligent or skilled enough to know how to work a gun. Right? There was just something about his little angered red slitted eyes that made Bellamy quickly reach for it, and lock it in their storage chest after that.)

Gingerly, he sinks down on the log beside her and she doesn't even bother looking up from her knife. "I told John not to bring them."

"I'm not here to blame you for anything," he starts, sending her an incredulous look, flipping his head a little to get his hair to move away from his eyes. "They're here now."

"Bellamy, I swear to Heda, if you say they're our people now, I'm going to—" She starts, aggravated, knife freezing in her hands.

He breaks out into a grin, shaking his head lightly. Murphy definitely does not deserve her. "Very funny."

She smiles, then immediately looks very uncomfortable that she did, dropping her knife in the sand. She brushes her hands off on her legs, leaning back on one palm, stuffing her deformed hand in between her thighs. "So. Sochu? Chomouda emo hir?"

"What? I can't just come see how my favorite Wastelander is doing?"

She arches an eyebrow, unimpressed. "Save the flirting for John. Did you kill one?"

His eyes widen, one hand unconsciously reaching up to the sack to check for three bumps of furriness. Like, somewhere subconsciously he knew that they could die and they they would. One day. In the far, far future. It just hadn't been an active thought in his mind, and being reminded of it felt like a punch in the gut. "No, no. Nah. They just—Octavia stormed into our tent, and the sunlight, it hurt them."

"Yeah, it does that," she mentions, neutral, as she picks up her knife and absentmindedly twirls the tip around in the sand.

When she doesn't elaborate, he presses, "Is there… Anything else? That I should know?"

"Probably."

"Emori," he urges, eyes briefly landing on the three humps of bodies tied to his chest. He really doesn't want to hurt them.

Her gaze softens. "I just know what I've been told. It's a stupid Grounder legends that parents tell their kids to get them to go to sleep, like how they teach them Wastelanders and anyone who supports them are stains on the bloodline." She purses her lips, and Bellamy wants to offer her some gesture of support, but isn't sure if they're there yet. "I don't even know if any of it's true."

"What happened with the sunlight, was  _that_  in the story?"

"Just—" She starts, then stops. She searches his face and must find what she's looking for because she sighs, stabbing the ground with her knife. "Make sure they're dry at all times, I guess. And whatever you do,  _don't_ feed them after midnight."

At least that's more than Murphy told him. He nods, grateful, as he rises up to his feet. Because he can't help himself, he squeezes her forearm. She doesn't flinch or kick him in the balls, so he figures they're there. "Thanks."

She offers him a tight-lipped purse of her lips that  _almost_  resembles a smile, shoulders still a little tense. He hesitates, hovering a little before he decides to sit back down. The mogwai move against his chest impatiently, tired of being covered by fabric, probably. "You know it's not just a thing we say, right?"

Her forehead creases. "What?"

"When we say you're welcome here and you're on of us. It's not just something we say to get you to trust us so we can double-cross you later." She looks conflicted, tucking a strand of lose hair back behind her scarf and he bites back a grins. "And it's  _certainly_ not because of Murphy. We're pretty picky when it comes to new people. You've earned your place."

The corners of her mouth turn up slightly, and he counts it as a smile. She glances over at her deformation, pulling the sleeve of her jacket further over her hand self consciously. He hopes one day soon, she won't hesitate to be herself around him, all of them. He doesn't want to push her now, though. "I am, too. Picky I mean."

"You say that, and yet you share a bed with Murphy every night," he retorts, only half-joking. How she ended up with him was still a mystery to Bellamy. Although they're both excellent thieves, considering he recognizes the knife at her feet as the one Miller has been looking for for weeks, which might just be it.

She lets out a humoured huff, shaking her head lightly. That is  _definitely_  a smile he's seeing. She looks like she wants to say something, but instead just swallows thickly, nodding over to the cloth hanging around his torso, vigilantly. "Just… Be careful with them, ogud, Bellamy?"

He smiles at her, all teeth as he pushes himself back onto his feet. "Yeah. I will."

* * *

Okay. So it's not like he lied to Emori. He really tried to be careful with them.

He managed for about two weeks. Then, half-hopped up on moonshine and hormones, Clarke convinces him to go for a night-swim. He figures there's no harm done. He can just set his furry children on a log, far away from the water, and there's no sunlight so they won't burn to death.

(He would ask someone to babysit them, but who can he really trust that isn't Clarke? Maybe Raven, but she would probably feed them, for science and/or shits and giggles.)

He's still tip-toeing into the water, discarding his shirt somewhere behind him, when Clarke emerges from the water, brushing her hair back from her face. It's cold. She calls out to him, "Don't be a pussy."

He rolls his eyes, treading further into the water until he can swim over to her. He's quickly developing hypothermia, but hey, at least Clarke looks really good wet, so he can die happy, surrounded by his kids. He slides up to her, connecting his fingers behind her lower back. Dropping his voice a few octaves, because he knows that's what gets her going, he teases, "You are what you eat."

"Hey," she lowers her voice, faux conspiratorially, hands sliding up on his chest to connect behind his neck. They're only waist-deep, so they can stand. Her eyes flick over to the basket on the land, briefly. "Not in front of our children, please."

His hands move to squeeze her hips. "Oh, so when I screw up they're  _our_  children, but when they annoy you and keep you awake, they're mine?" She just laughs, nuzzling her nose against his jaw and leaning up to connect their mouths.

Spartacus and Fulvia are fine, as in, they don't actively try to fuck up the rules—but at one point when Bellamy and Clarke are otherwise occupied—Lucifer actually  _dives_  into the water. He cackles loudly, and when Bellamy scoops him up and sets him down on the land, his body starts shaking violently.

Smaller balls of fur are ejected from him at full speed, and upon closer inspection, appear to be  _more_ mogwai. "What the fuck," Clarke screeches, quickly wiping her hands on her discarded clothes on the floor as she shooes all the tiny ones away from the water.

Bellamy follows her lead, putting about five of them in the basket and holds Lucifer—who's still cackling evilly, body actually shaking from some seriously misplaced joy—in his hand, just to be sure he doesn't try and pull whatever he just pulled again. He agrees, sharing one of his telepathic gaze with Clarke. " _What_ the fuck."

(This is worse than when he woke up to Spartacus trying to wrestle a pocket knife from Lucifer, a strand of Clarke's hair clutched in his tiny fist. Safe to say Bellamy did a safety sweep of their tent after that and locked up any and all weapons.)

That night, they sleep with seven mogwai in their bed, one in the basket in a useless way to try and punish him for...  _giving birth_ , Bellamy guesses. It's more for himself, so he doesn't feel like the worst parent ever, than it is for Lucifer's benefit. He doesn't seem to care.

Three mogwai were a lot, but eight, eight's  _too_  much. He gives two as a wedding present to Marcus and Abby—and he's half-tempted to make one of them Lucifer so it's someone else's problem, but even if he might be evil, Bellamy still loves him. He reminds him of Murphy, oddly. He convinces Emori to take one because they're buddies now and Raven flat out laughs at him when he asks her, and strongarms Miller and Jackson into taking the other two left, under the guise of them ' _testing their relationship without actually taking the next step'_ , like they're bags of baby-substituting flower and he's back in biology class but now as the teacher. God, biology. Never thought it would have such a big influence on his life.

Then, Miller makes the mistake of letting Jasper babysit King and Kong for the night. They come home from their date-night to find Kong's teeth trying to dig into a struggling Jasper's neck and because he half-succeeded, Miller has to shoot him while Jackson holds him down. He was fed after midnight, and turned into some kind of psychotic reptile, out for blood.

So, that's that. Bellamy knows it's dangerous, since there are rules and he can't trust everyone to follow them as strictly as he knows they have to, so he goes by everyone's tent with a bag and re-collects his mogwai. (He's perpetually stressed, raising seven, but like. He already loves them, so much. Like, a lot.)

Except for King, Miller brings King back willingly.

"You might think," he started off, stalking up to Bellamy eating breakfast with some of the other delinquents, mid-sentence in a conversation with Harper. Miller doesn't seem to care. "Why do you have a little gremlin hiding in your purse?"

"It's a  _mogwai_ ," he answers petulantly, squinting up at his best friend as he swallows down a mouthful of banana, because like. These are his children, and they might be blood-thirsty murderous creatures, but it's not  _their_  fault.

"Well,  _Bellamy_ , because this thing is the literal spawn of satan in the making and it's taking every last bit of my willpower not to expose it to daylight right this fucking minute," he continues cynically, nostrils flaring as he holds out the bag for Bellamy to take. Miller's jaw tightens as he takes it, holding his hands up like he just did a mic drop. "Me and Jackson made up our minds. We're never ever having kids. So. Fuck you, too, Bellamy."

So not only did one almost murder one of his human friends, Bellamy now has to live with the fact he's the sole cause of less children walking around on earth.  _Great_.

"You saw what they did to Jasper," Clarke corners him later, when he comes to the medbay to sulk, tired look on her face. She spent most of the remainder of the night after the attack stitching up their friend's throat and the claw marks on his flesh while Bellamy made sure Kong was really dead, and buried him.

"He shouldn't have laid his greedly little fucking fingers on them to start with," he snaps, defiant, crossing his arms over his chest as he leans back against on of the gurneys. In this position, Clarke slightly towers over him.

"Bellamy," she just states, hand on top of his shoulder, and he sighs heavily, pressing his palms to his brow bones, trying to release some of tension he feels. He knows he's being stupid. Kong tried to kill Jasper, or feed on his blood, or God knows what, something non-humane at least, and now he's dead. Irrationally, he's sad about that. He didn't deserve it, and if Jasper just hadn't fed him—

"I know," he croaks out, and he's not going to fucking cry about it. The pressure on his shoulder increases. "It's just. No one's ever given them a chance."

Her gaze softens, and she leans forward to press her lips against temple, other hand coming up to play with the hairs at the nape of neck, absently. "I know you love them, because I know  _you_ , and you have such a big—"

His head snaps up to glare at her. "If you tell me to use my head and not my heart I'm moving out."

"No, no," she presses, both hands shifting so they're placed on the junctions between his neck and shoulders. She rests her forehead against one of her hands, body shaking from laughter as she hides a smile.

"Okay, maybe I was," she mumbles against his neck, before lifting her face to meet his brown eyes. She studies him for a moment, thoughtful. "Although, one of them did try and murder our friend, babe. So perhaps, like," she shrugs, innocently batting her eyelashes, squeezing his face affectionately before a hand reaches up to flick him in the forehead. "Use your fucking head?"

He sighs, because she's right, like always, folding his hands around her hips and pulling her closer so he can press a kiss to the crown of her head. He knows they like, tried to kill Jasper, but he's also woken up a few nights in a row to find Lucifer staring down at Clarke with an evil glint in his eyes. He can't in good conscious risk it. "I have you for that, don't I?"

"Well, I'd hate to say it," she rests her chin on top of his head, as he rests it against her chest, hugging her tightly. He's always been fairly tactile, but with Clarke it's  _worse_. He just wants to be as close as possible to her all the time. "But… I think all we need is one of your inspirational pep-talks and a meeting with Murphy."

He pulls back from her, searching her face for any facetiousness with a grimace on his own. Was the cause of their eternal frustration really their only way out? She runs a hand through his hair, smiling as he presses, weary, "Murphy?"

At supper, he announces him and Murphy ( _'If you wanted some quality time with me, all you had to do was ask. No need to have someone practically murdered over it'_ ) are taking all the Mogwai back where they belong, squashing any hateful calls from the crowd for vengeance with an empowering speech about how  _they're better than this_. They survived and now they need to learn how to use their humanity again. Even if that's hard for some.

"I don't know what you all expected," Monty notes, managing to not even sound judgemental, as Bellamy's packing his bag for the three day trip to the cave they originated from. "Mogwai literally means monster in Cantonese. Wasn't that a mandatory class on the Ark?"

He narrows his eyes, opening his mouth to tell him something along the lines of, maybe the real monsters were the friends they made along the way, _Monty_.

"Not in Bellamy's time," Raven smirks, cutting him off before he can speak, clapping Monty on the back before crossing her arms over her chest. He's seriously not even that much older than her, but whatever. She looks rather satisfied with herself. "My question is, how can you idiots not have seen that gremlin movie from the archives? I watched it like twenty times when I was a kid."

Bellamy just blinks at her, stupidly, before tiredly shaking his head. He won't get into the fact she knew all this time (because of course Raven knew, she's Raven), not right now, for the sake of his sanity. He slings his bag over his shoulder before he ducks into his tent.

Clarke's on the bed with his original three mogwai, the others in the basket already. He sits down beside her, staring down at them in his girlfriend's lap, sadly.

It's the right thing to do, to take them back to where they came from. The caves are dark and dry, and at least they won't kill anyone if they do turn into gremlins.

He picks up his favorite, tickling him on his belly. Spartacus will take care of them. He's brave. Fulvia stares up at him from where she's nestled against Clarke's chest and he guesses she's grown on them. He feels like a little piece of him is dying, but that's alright. It's going to be better this way.

He rolls his eyes as Lucifer opens his mouth to sink his teeth down in Clarke's arm when she doesn't notice him slithering up to her side, picking him up by the scruff of his neck and placing him in the basket wordlessly. "Stay," he warns, one finger pointed at him sternly, before turning back to her.

She snorts, shaking her head lightly as she pets Fulvia absently. "You know, day trips are kind of our thing."

"Sorry, babe. I think you're on Lucifer's hitlist," he grins, nudging her with his elbow. "Plus, it's  _six_  days, not just one. With Murphy. I hardly think it'll be as fun as ours."

She sighs dramatically, leaning her temple on his shoulder. "At least promise me you won't fall in love with him."

"That'll take  _at least_  two separate trips," he scoffs, humoured, connecting their hands somewhere in the middle. He peeks at her from the corner of his eyes. "I speak from experience."

"Please," she huffs, thoroughly unimpressed. Maybe he hadn't been so smooth back then after all. "You were gone on me after the first."

* * *

Their trip mostly goes off without a hitch.

(Except for that one night he surges awake to find Lucifer whimpering beside him on the floor, near their campfire. He rises to a crouch quickly, picking him up. He's bleeding. He looks up at Murphy, whose chest is heaving up and down quickly, with narrowed eyes. "Did you  _stab_  him?"

Murphy snarls right back at him, wiping his bloody hand on his pants. The smell of alcohol oozes off him. "What? No! I didn't st—I'm offended you'd even ask that," he sputters, then his anger deflates, just a little. He shrugs, half-heartedly. "I hit him with a rock."

"Why the fuck—" Bellamy starts, rising to his feet, mogwai clutched to his chest protectively. Lucifer might not be an angel, but he doesn't deserve to be executed on the spot because Murphy decided to get drunk and—

"I found him digging his way into my backpack to get to my rations. When I went to stop him, he literally tried to set me on fire by throwing moonshine at my face and lightening a branch on fire," Murphy cuts him off, flicking some of his greasy hair out of his face, looking rather smug.

Bellamy looks down at Lucifer, who just purrs up at him with his beady red eyes, actually glazed over with tears, like a true master manipulator. "You never did learn how to share.")

When they get back to camp, it's early in the morning. He finds Clarke in the medbay, doing inventory. She always did have trouble sleeping when he was away. She smiles at him, pecking his lips in a greeting as they embrace. He missed her, and he also misses his furry babies. His memory keeps flashing back to the sad look on their faces and it hurts. May they meet again.

"So, did you keep your promise?" She mumbles into his shoulder before pulling back to look at him.

"You know I can't resist Murphy's charms," he jokes, but it falls flat. He isn't in a teasing mood. She offers him a comforting smile, kissing his jaw before shifting her head to search his face. "I know that was hard, but it had to be done."

"Yeah, I know," he sighs, sadly, lifting a hand to her hair to stroke it dazedly, and Clarke tugs on his hands, leading him out of the medbay towards their tent and simply informing him that, "I have something to tell you."

She stops in front of their tent, moving nervously on the balls of her feet as she bites down on her bottom lip. He tilts his head in confusion, squeezing her hand softly. Whatever it is, he's sure they'll be able to handle it together. "What's going on, Clarke?"

"I don't know if it'll make you feel better, but," she holds the flap of their tent aside, so he can cast a look inside of it. There's a little, brown-haired girl asleep on their bed. For a second he panicks, but then he remembers that's not how pregnancies work. Wringing her hands together, she adds, "We found her a day after you guys left."

Bellamy looks from his girlfriend to the tiny girl and back. Clarke's face scrunches up as she lets go of the flap, using her hand to wipe some hair back from her face. Resentful and a little pained, she explains, "Her parents were killed when they refused to take the key, and she's been living in the woods on her own ever since."

Skeptical and partly amused, he cocks an eyebrow. "You found me a kid?"

"I didn't find you a kid," she corrects him, trying hard to hide a smile. "The kid found me. She hasn't left my side ever since. And—" her voice trails off as she looks up at him, leaning into him slightly as his arm comes up to fold around her shoulders, his gaze still fixed on their tent as he tries to process all of this new information. "I don't know. I think she'll like you."

She found him an actual kid. He's so in love with her, it's hard to breathe sometimes. He grins, absent, then finally looks at her. "Yeah? What's her name?"

Clarke beams up at him, not able to help herself as she squeezes his forearm. She's already completely gone on the girl, he can tell as much. He's sure he will be, too. "Madi."

* * *

(For Murphy's birthday, Bellamy gives him some furry elvish-looking goblins he found on a hike to a waterfall with Madi. They technically don't look very innocent, but he wants to give them a chance and is trying to teach Madi not to judge a book by it's cover. It does not end well.

"Seriously," Raven states—after half their camp has been destroyed, some tents on fire, others completely obliterated in the rampage—her shirt ripped, ponytail a mess, face splattered with blood and dripping down her arm. Earth, you never know. "You haven't seen Hobgoblins either, you uncultured swine?")

**Author's Note:**

> kudos? comments? ~~some condoms?~~  
> [lemme know!](http://www.safeands0und13.tumblr.com)


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